Blood, Frost, Unholy... Blue?

#0 - Aug. 6, 2007, 7:57 p.m.

I pulled this off of www.wowwiki.com today. I know that is not an official source but apparently this was discussed at Blizzcon and I would like some confirmation.

"Uses a rune system instead of mana, energy, or rage including three schools: blood, frost and unholy."

Okay, firstly this class is going to use a unique system for activating abilities that is seperate from the traditional systems. Okay, is this being used in order to limit how nasty a DK can really be? Or will it be similar to the systems already implemented by Blizz, just a different style?

Next, we have two new damage types being presented. Blood and Unholy. Blood is interesting, if I had to guess I would say that this is more of a magic for debuffs then direct damage. As far as unholy is concerned, don't we already have shadow? I know it isn't techinically the same but come on! So I guess my big question to this is, will we see new mobs that also wield these damage types, and more importantly will we be expected to have gear that resists these damage types?

Drysc

#11 - Aug. 6, 2007, 8:08 p.m.

To answer the last question first, the rune types don't dictate a new damage type, they're simply a resource that spells and abilities will use when you activate them. The spells and abilities won't necessarily be "blood, unholy, or frost" damage. Although I would make a personal guess that it's likely for shadow spells to use unholy runes to activate, physical damage spells could use blood, and frost spells using frost runes.

For the first question, no I don't see it as being a mechanic to limit how awesome they are really, but it definitely does allow us to balance and plan for what abilities can be used, when, how often, and in what combination with other abilities. I think the new system is definitely more in-depth, and will be interesting as I think it's going to add quite a bit of complexity to being able to play the class well. Which is probably a good mark of a hero class.

Imagine it being three different energy pools which you can change the size of before you get into combat.